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2 Questions On Meditation
ThailandTom
Veteran
in Meditation
As some of you may be aware I am re-reading the book 'The Way It Is' and some of you may also be aware my meditation practice over the past 5-6 years has been slack to say the least. However I have recently had some inspiration to just sit and let whatever may happen happen as apposed to viewing it as a task to be done with all kinds of striving and toil.
My first question is about emptiness, I read a passage not long ago and then meditated on it, it really helped with my sittings. It reads:
'The space around thought - we don't notice that very much, do we? It is just like the space in this room, I have to call your attention to it. Now what does it take to be aware of the space in this room? You have to be alert. With the objects in the room you don't have to be alert, you can just be attracted or repelled: 'I don't like that, I like this.' You can just react to the quality of beauty and ugliness, whether it pleases or displeases you. It's our habit, isn't it? Our life tends to be reaction to pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness. So we see beauty and we say, 'Oh, look at that! Isn't it absolutely fantastic?' or think 'Oh, disgusting!'
But beautiful objects and the ugly ones are all in the space and to notice space you withdraw your attention from the objects of beauty and ugliness. Of course they're still there, you needn't throw them out; you don't have to tear down the building so that we can have space here. But if you don't concentrate with love or hate on what's in the room, if you don't make anything of it, your attention withdraws from the objects and you notice the space.
So we have a perspective on space in a room like this. You can reflect on that. Anyone can come and go in this space. The most beautiful, the most ugly, saint and sinner, can come and go in this space and the space is never harmed or ruined or destroyed by the objects that come and go in this space.
The mind works on the same principle. But if you're not used to seeing the spaciousness of your mind, you are not aware of the space that the mind really is. So you're unaware of the emptiness of the mind because you're always attache to an idea or an opinion or mood.'
This I understood very well and thought it happened to be one of the best ways to explain how emptiness can be realised in the mind. I meditated on it and as things arouse I tried to be indifferent to them and made a sign in my mind when that thought ceased, just as Ajahn Sumedho spoke about. I saw a space of nothing in between that thought and the next, sometimes it was short and sometimes it was longer. The next thought sometimes was connected to the previous one and sometimes it was not, other times it was just being reminded of the breath which in itself is a thought, not emptiness I would assume. My question is where to go from there, how to build on this way of practice?
My second questions will take far less of your time to whoever may be reading this and it more opinion based. I have ordered a 108 jade bead mala necklace for meditation seeing as I have noticed how I have been stuck in a rut for at least the past 4 months, maybe half of a year, and would like to delve back into meditation. I have already had positive outcomes but I am fully aware that these should be let go just as they arouse in experience. What are your experiences if any with meditation mala and how do you specifically use them?
My first question is about emptiness, I read a passage not long ago and then meditated on it, it really helped with my sittings. It reads:
'The space around thought - we don't notice that very much, do we? It is just like the space in this room, I have to call your attention to it. Now what does it take to be aware of the space in this room? You have to be alert. With the objects in the room you don't have to be alert, you can just be attracted or repelled: 'I don't like that, I like this.' You can just react to the quality of beauty and ugliness, whether it pleases or displeases you. It's our habit, isn't it? Our life tends to be reaction to pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness. So we see beauty and we say, 'Oh, look at that! Isn't it absolutely fantastic?' or think 'Oh, disgusting!'
But beautiful objects and the ugly ones are all in the space and to notice space you withdraw your attention from the objects of beauty and ugliness. Of course they're still there, you needn't throw them out; you don't have to tear down the building so that we can have space here. But if you don't concentrate with love or hate on what's in the room, if you don't make anything of it, your attention withdraws from the objects and you notice the space.
So we have a perspective on space in a room like this. You can reflect on that. Anyone can come and go in this space. The most beautiful, the most ugly, saint and sinner, can come and go in this space and the space is never harmed or ruined or destroyed by the objects that come and go in this space.
The mind works on the same principle. But if you're not used to seeing the spaciousness of your mind, you are not aware of the space that the mind really is. So you're unaware of the emptiness of the mind because you're always attache to an idea or an opinion or mood.'
This I understood very well and thought it happened to be one of the best ways to explain how emptiness can be realised in the mind. I meditated on it and as things arouse I tried to be indifferent to them and made a sign in my mind when that thought ceased, just as Ajahn Sumedho spoke about. I saw a space of nothing in between that thought and the next, sometimes it was short and sometimes it was longer. The next thought sometimes was connected to the previous one and sometimes it was not, other times it was just being reminded of the breath which in itself is a thought, not emptiness I would assume. My question is where to go from there, how to build on this way of practice?
My second questions will take far less of your time to whoever may be reading this and it more opinion based. I have ordered a 108 jade bead mala necklace for meditation seeing as I have noticed how I have been stuck in a rut for at least the past 4 months, maybe half of a year, and would like to delve back into meditation. I have already had positive outcomes but I am fully aware that these should be let go just as they arouse in experience. What are your experiences if any with meditation mala and how do you specifically use them?
4
Comments
2. Another way to access space is to examine an object visually or with the eyes. Then bring your attention to the eyes. Then shift your attention to the object again. Then shift your attention to the periphery. Defocus looking past both the object and the eye. Kind of like a panoramic attention. Practice that as your object. Then you can bring that wide sense of attention to other sense modules. Such as your body sense using the same formula. Then your thoughts, smells, sounds, etc.
3. You can then examine instead the space, the awareness that is observing the thoughts. So shift the attention from the space to the contraction behind the eyes. Make that into the object of meditation. That is like awareness aware of awareness.
4. Then you can examine the space and awareness together. Relax the sensations of the witness into the space and there should be a collapse into space. Then space and awareness become a unity. Make this into your object of meditation. One can expand this infinitely inward and outward.
5. With time learn to detach from the spacious awareness. Though it will be hard because one will obsess over it. But if one can then even this perception fades and one will reach cessation.
At the place of spacious awareness it is very freeing, so one will ask why do I need to let go of this as well? Because one is actually clinging to mind and formulating an identity around it. Hence if one uses the practices of impermanence or anatta then one can even let go of this spacious awareness, which many deem incorrectly as emptiness.
Best wishes.
Malas:
I find them an excellent, integrated and relaxed way of counting mantras, prostrations or breaths. I have a feeling you intend mantra but do try other counting . . .
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/post/57234975984/buddhist-mantra-faqs
I would suggest that mala use combined with a simple meditation practice will provide a solid base of practice. One other tool is recording and feedback. You can keep a meditation journal, just let us know how you are getting on etc . . .
How Wonderful.
I suggest that you find an experienced English speaking meditation teacher from a recognised Buddhist lineage..and listen.
@lobster I have ordered my mala and will look up on that link and into what you have already said.
@Citta a means of suppression? The books I have Buddhist related have all been read and re-read, I have had a wrist mala before bust it broke, this is a necklace mala, jade. I have been meditating recently on this point of emptiness, bringing a question into the front view and seeing where it goes, seeing the space around things, but I have found that my current wrist bracelet I have I used as a kind of mala in a way as it has beads, it has helped at times. But when I get into some specific states of mind I see the counter stops and then I come back to it.
Mantra is not a practice for those without established stillness of mind.
Aquaintance with your posts over the last year suggests that stillness of mind is not something you would claim.
Mantrams are not magic. They are tools that need to be used properly, rather than as distractions.
Go to a flesh and blood teacher is my advice.
But of course no one can learn from the experience of others..
Let us know how it goes ?
Be well.
_/\_
Dr. Greg Goode
Is space limited? Around you top bottom left right straight back. Is there a limit to how far space goes?
But then is it unlimited forever?
Firstly, I think you're just suppose to keep doing what you describe, i.e. noting the spaciousness of your mind until you become proficient in it. This exercise will help you see how it is through becoming unattached to conditions that arise in the mind, that will allow us to see the true nature of things. For example, by not following thoughts that appear in the mind, we find the emptiness of the mind. So we see the importance of being unattached to conditions of the mind and we practice this skill.
Ajahn Sumedho said: Secondly, once you have developed the skill of being unattached to conditions of the mind, you should also note how everything that appears in the empty mind also ceases there. Even the perception of "I am" should be seen as such, ie. something that arises and ceases in the empty mind.
Ajahn Sumedho points to this as follows: And why is it important to note where everything ceases?
Ajahn Sumedho explains that: Therefore, you should investigate further to see how all the aggregrates arise and cease in the empty mind. This is to lead to the realisation that all of them - even the body - is a something that arises and ceases in the mind.
In the words of Ajahn Sumedho: So we see that the nature of the aggregates is something that we have to investigate in the empty mind, the place where they arise and cease, and to do so in an unattached way so that we can see their true nature and free ourselves from being deluded by them.
Seeing how the aggregates arise and cease in the mind would already point to their impermanent nature and thereby also their unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). Furthermore, you can also reflect on the fact that any objects/conditions that arise and cease in the mind are simply that ie. objects/conditions that arise and cease in that empty space. They come and go in that empty space being just momentary conditions of the mind that are empty of self, ie. they are not "you" or "yours".
That's why Ajahn Sumedho said: In another transcript of one of his talks in the same book, Ajahn Sumedho also points out that:
I used to use a mala for counting accumulations, ie mantra repetitions.